Was the Transfiguration a vision, or an actual appearance of Moses and Elijah?
- Thread starter St. SteVen
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Wick Stick
Well-Known Member
Because it makes specific reference to Genesis and gives an explanation of it.
I'm aware that the church-at-large doesn't agree on the meaning of Ezekiel 28. I haven't gone out of my way to explore every church's interpretation, instead preferring to rely on the oldest sources to the exclusion of the authority of a church.
Ezekiel makes several prophecies against kings, and in all cases his words tend to be directed to the whole nation, rather than some certain individual who is king-of-the-moment. When Ezekiel prophecies against the King of Tyre, he prophecies against every future king of Tyre (but especially the one who would oppose the Israelites return from captivity during the days of Cyrus).
Disagree - Lebanon is strongly associated with Eden. Ezekiel (again) specifically links the two:
I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. Ezekiel 31:16
"Kings" during this era were typically rulers over only a single city, and were vassals answering to an emperor, who could establish (consecrate) or depose them at will. This isn't special for the time and place it was written.
More importantly, the Bible views all kings as vassals answerable to God. This is why God is "King of kings" and "Lord of lords." HE is the one who establishes kings and deposes them.
I can tell you how I understand it.
When any king turns themself against God, the situation is that the vassal has risen up in rebellion against his Lord, making themself an adversary. I.e. They have done what Satan, the Adversary, did first, showing that they are his children. "Ye do the deeds of your father," Jesus said.
These cities or nations begin to act a certain way. They "sit on many waters" or "in the midst of the seas" and "by thy traffick thou increase thy riches" meaning they become centers of world commerce. Gold becomes the god of their society. In Daniel, we can see a prophecy of successive empires - Babylon, Persia, Greece, etc that inherit this role one after the other.
But before any of those arose as "the evil empire," that title belonged to the Phoenicians, especially Tyre and Sidon, who dominated merchant trade on the Mediterranean with their superior ships.
So yes, the king of Tyre is "Satan," the adversary - one in a series of such corrupted kingdoms. As quickly as Satan subverts nations, God tears them down, one after the other.
Wick Stick
Well-Known Member
I see... lacking any actual response to what was said, you're just going to repeat yourself ad nauseum.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
In my view Johann, you have missed the objective. I asked to tell me your understanding of God's Wrath.
Hebrew Words for God’s Wrath
אַף ('aph)
Literal meaning: "Nose" or "nostrils," but often used metaphorically to express anger or wrath (i.e., the flaring of nostrils in anger).
Biblical usage: Commonly used to describe God’s wrath, as in Psalm 2:5.
Example:
Psalm 78:49 — "He unleashed against them his hot anger ('aph), wrath, indignation, and hostility..."
חֵמָה (chemah)
Meaning: "Heat" or "fury," often associated with a blazing anger or wrath.
Biblical usage: Emphasizes an intense or burning anger, frequently describing God's response to sin and rebellion.
Example:
Deuteronomy 9:19 — "For I was afraid of the anger and wrath (chemah) of the LORD..."
עֶבְרָה ('ebrah)
Meaning: "Overflowing" or "fury," indicating extreme anger that leads to punishment.
Biblical usage: Often used in conjunction with chemah to express full wrath.
Example:
Ezekiel 7:19 — "Their silver and their gold... will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs. It has become the stumbling block of their iniquity."
קֶצֶף (qetseph)
Meaning: "Rage" or "indignation."
Biblical usage: Often conveys a sudden outburst of God's wrath or righteous anger.
Example:
Isaiah 34:2 — "For the LORD is angry with all nations; his wrath (qetseph) is on all their armies."
זַעַם (za'am)
Meaning: "Indignation" or "fury."
Biblical usage: Usually associated with God’s judgment or curse on nations or individuals.
Example:
Isaiah 30:30 — "The LORD will cause people to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger (za'am) and consuming fire."
Greek Words for God’s Wrath
ὀργή (orgē)
Meaning: "Wrath" or "anger."
Biblical usage: This is the primary word used in the New Testament to describe God's wrath. It is generally associated with God's righteous judgment.
Example:
Romans 1:18 — "For the wrath (orgē) of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men..."
θυμός (thymos)
Meaning: "Fury" or "intense passion."
Biblical usage: Often emphasizes the intensity of anger, sometimes linked with short-term divine indignation.
Example:
Revelation 14:10 — "He will drink of the wine of the fury (thymos) of God, which is poured full strength into the cup of His anger."
παροργισμός (parorgismos)
Meaning: "Provocation to anger."
Biblical usage: Typically refers to anger provoked by rebellion or disobedience, used in an admonishing sense.
Example:
Ephesians 4:26 — "Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath (parorgismos)."
ἐκδικησις (ekdikēsis)
Meaning: "Vengeance" or "retribution."
Biblical usage: This term refers to God's righteous execution of judgment and is often linked with His wrath.
Example:
Romans 12:19 — "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance (ekdikēsis) is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord."
Wrath in Context
God’s wrath is described in Scripture as His righteous and just response to sin, rebellion, and injustice. It is not an uncontrollable outburst but a measured and divine action against what is morally wrong. Both the Hebrew and Greek words highlight the seriousness and intensity of God's anger against evil, but always in alignment with His holiness and justice.
This what you are looking, or not looking for?
J.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Johann, please excuse my forwardness in this little blurb. I am trying to be objective while following this discussion however I conclude you are adept at not answering the questions put to you. My guess is you are snowed in preconceptions and a multitude of words coupled with your academic prowess. These have disabled your hearing and subsequently hamstrung your ability to answer cogently and succinctly.
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What does this say about God's character?
Seems like character assassination to me.
May your mountain of books be cast into the sea.
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What does this say about the character of God?
What sort of monster would create such a thing? The most sadist tyrant imaginable.
How does it work and what is the purpose?
There is no purpose other than eternal torment on the grandest scale.
We have all experienced a burn at some point in our lives.
Maybe we touched the stove. We immediately removed our hand,
And learned an important lesson. NEVER touch the stove.
We are also familiar with the burn ward at the hospital.
Severe burn victims are treated there. Recovery is horrible.
Requiring skin grafts and a slow and painful healing process.
Yet no human has fallen into a volcano (lake of fire) and survived.
Is this what God has planned for those who refuse the free gift of eternal life?
Seems pretty harsh. Receive the free gift of eternal life, or if you prefer
you will be incinerated. That is one VERY expensive FREE GIFT.
Imagine being thrown into a volcano. What a horrible thing. But wait...
That's not the end. God has created this lake of fire so that you cannot die.
You will endure this torture with no hope of escape.
Your flesh will be burned away only to be replaced with fresh flesh to be burned again and again.
Hard to imagine a more sadistic or cruel punishment for a temporal crime. Justice? Nope.
Couldn't this have been avoided with a simple discussion?
Ten seconds in hell would be enough for anyone to get the message.
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New topic.
www.christianityboard.com
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What does the hell doctrine say about the character of God?
What sort of monster would create such a thing? The most sadist tyrant imaginable. How does it work and what is the purpose? There is no purpose other than eternal torment on the grandest scale. We have all experienced a burn at some point in our lives. Maybe we touched the stove. We...
www.christianityboard.com
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face2face
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Unfortunately your original statement revealed that truth...not a liar but most certainly a crackpot!
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Nowhere in Scripture do we find such a scenario. Why would God “pre-select a few” as worthy of life, whilst he created the majority to suffer a punishment for which they carry no blame? Where is there justice in that idea? It makes God into a tyrannical despot who creates for the purpose of punishing people who are created to sin…..what utter nonsense! A complete lie.
All of God’s children in both realms have free will, which is clearly embodied in the Genesis account of the fall. If they did not have free will, then the devil’s actions were programmed by God to take place as they did….and the human response was also programmed, despite the fact that God told them NOT to partake of the TKGE, under penalty of death. The actions of both parties were clearly a choice.
What kind of fiend would God be if he planned all this suffering and pain and death? He tried very hard to give the humans every opportunity to avoid that consequence. But once the ‘genie was out of the bottle’….there was no putting it back….they would now have to see where their choices took them….a first hand experience of what it meant to disobey their Sovereign. The ultimate life lesson.
This scenario is much more in keeping with the personality of God, and yet the death penalty was part of God’s law right from the start. Disobedience meant death…..so what is death? It is the opposite of life, as God told Adam…given the “breath (spirit) of life”, the lifeless body that God created “became” a “soul”. He was not “given” one. So right away we see where the problem lies…..it is belief in the devil’s first lie….”you surely will not die”….when God never negated the meaning of the death penalty…it was a removal from life…period.
There is no mention of an “immortal soul” in any verse of the Bible, but this universal belief permeates both camps, but in different ways. Every form of false worship practiced in the world embraces this lie. All have invented places for immortal souls to go, when in actual fact they have never existed.
“Sheol/hades“ in Scripture is the grave…the common place where the dead are held in the earth (“back to the dust” eventually) just as Adam was told. (Gen 3:19) But there was always hope that the dead would live again. Even Job expressed such a belief.
What is the source of both views? The thief has stolen the truth from both camps…one portraying God as a fiend….and the other as a weak and watery God who does not hold his free willed children accountable.
What is missing is the truth about what happens at death.
The ancient Jews had no belief in an immortal soul because their Scripture simply never mentioned such a thing. Sheol was the grave…a place where the dead slept in an unconscious condition. (Eccl 9:5, 10; Psalm 115:17) It was not a place of conscious activity of any description. But it was a place from which the dead could be resurrected when Messiah’s Kingdom rules the world (at some time in the future) More details would be added to their understanding once Messiah came and explained God’s plan in more detail.
The pagan Greeks promoted this idea of a spiritual part of humans immediately leaving the body at death to go to destinations unknown…..which appealed to the fact that humans are not programmed to die….we were supposed to live forever, right here on earth….so all of us have a programmed expectation to go on living….death is a foreign element to us and unacceptable to a heart that cannot process being eliminated from existence….the devil’s lie is appealing….and yet, is that what God told Adam and his wife…..he said that if they ate from the forbidden tree they would die….it was the devil who lied…not God.
But there are two kinds of “death”…..a first and a “second”, according to Scripture…..just there is a “first” and second kind of resurrection……so what is the difference?
The confusion starts when an incorrect definition was given of death….what death did Adam die? Where was he told that he would go? Back to the dust from whence he came….nothing more.....this is the death he passed on to all of his children…a death that because of Christ’s sacrifice, was reversible……not by the existence of an immortal soul, but by resurrection…. a return or restoration of life, not a continuation of it.
God wants to give as many of his earthly children as possible, the opportunity to become citizens of his incoming kingdom…the domain over which he is Sovereign Ruler.….it encompasses both realms, earthly and heavenly. His ‘children’ inhabit both realms.
So the hope of a resurrection was the means by which his earthly children could have sin and death eliminated from their lives permanently, having inherited the sin that causes it, through no fault on their part.
God’s heavenly children OTOH, have no such inheritance and so are directly responsible to God for any defection and abuse of their free will. None of those angels who became demons have such a hope because they have no reason or excuse to disobey their Sovereign....they were created faultless like Adam and made a wrong decision, for the wrong reason.
The lake of fire (not a literal place) is a symbol of completely irreversible death. It is an “eternal punishment” because no one ever comes out of Gehenna…..pictured by the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where the city’s refuse was consumed by a fire that never went out, and what the flames missed, the maggots finished off…..it was a place where the bodies of executed criminals were sometimes cast because they were not considered worthy of a decent burial. Having no grave, it was assumed that God would not remember them in the resurrection to come. It was a symbol of everlasting death.
So in understanding Scripture through the eyes of those to whom, and by whom, it was written, we get an entirely different view of both scenarios and see that neither of them are correct.
face2face
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So few in the forum understand the truth of these words. Most have allowed themselves to be deceived with many ungodly notions of everlasting ethereal soul torment and all the garb that goes with that falsehood.
JW's understand the state of the dead which places them a long way ahead of the Christian.
F2F
St. SteVen said:
The two views of God's plan for humankind stand in stark contrast.
View #1)
God created humankind to glorify himself in punishing them for their unworthiness.
He hand-selected a few as an Elect, predestined to avoid the destruction he would bring on the vast majority.
And it is not clear why he selected those he did, and bypassed the rest. Random selection?
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The two views of God's plan for humankind stand in stark contrast.
View #1)
God created humankind to glorify himself in punishing them for their unworthiness.
He hand-selected a few as an Elect, predestined to avoid the destruction he would bring on the vast majority.
And it is not clear why he selected those he did, and bypassed the rest. Random selection?
I agree. View #1 is a terrible view.
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St. SteVen said:
View #2)
God created humankind in his own image. In the same way human children bear the image of their parents.
Even the terminology informs his relationship with us. God the Father. As the model for human fatherhood.
This parental love informs his plan and good intentions for all of humankind. This longing for family and
togetherness is woven into the human heart. We long for nothing as much as to be safe at home.
[
View #2)
God created humankind in his own image. In the same way human children bear the image of their parents.
Even the terminology informs his relationship with us. God the Father. As the model for human fatherhood.
This parental love informs his plan and good intentions for all of humankind. This longing for family and
togetherness is woven into the human heart. We long for nothing as much as to be safe at home.
Good, thanks.
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Oh, the irony-
You, @St. SteVen, and F2F, steeped in deception, cannot see the wood from the trees, wanting to spread the damnable heresy of Universalism.
You think you’re something, but it’s just a facade-no Holy Spirit, void of what truly matters.
The unholy triplet, the three of you.
"Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God" (2 John 1:9, NKJV).
"Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons" (1 Timothy 4:1, NKJV).
Stay with politics.
J.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
You have me pegged as a Universalist Johann however the thing is, I don't peg myself as a Universalist.....Isn't that odd?
Ahhhhh, these names/ titles that get bandied around and plastered on ourselves and lobbed onto others is just another trick to short circuit any need for further enquiry. I wonder what they labeled Jesus? any idea?....and who were those so keen on labelling? Could it have been the dead who bounced out of their stiff cold straight jackets after he called them? or the blind eyes who now were enraptured by seeing colours? maybe the paralytics or the lame he got to dance? What about the five thousand he spread a table for...and their wives....and kids, that's gotta be at least ten thousand hungry munchers....Now let me see, my guess it was the educated in theological matters, you know, scribes and the like, the ones who made lots of words, dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's who kept themselves untouched from the sweaty, dusty rabble.....all which amounted to, in Jesus' words, swallowing camels and straining at gnats. Ahhhh, I remember one, they aligned him with, Beelzebub...hmmmm.
I wish you peace Johann....the peace of knowing your Saviour!
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